


I'm Holding My Breath With a Baseball Bat

by ryguy



Series: Murderverse [1]
Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood and Gore, Gen, Minor Character Death, Murder, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:22:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27163798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryguy/pseuds/ryguy
Summary: Charlie and Dennis attempt to live through the aftershocks of Jack's death. The catch? Dennis is the culprit.
Series: Murderverse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2067105
Comments: 7
Kudos: 14





	I'm Holding My Breath With a Baseball Bat

**Author's Note:**

> The Charden murderer-accomplice fic I've been meaning to write for... several months now! Shoutout to [easystreets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/easystreets/pseuds/easystreets) and [hyperbolaris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keuppia/pseuds/hyperbolaris) for the inspiration; ["same kind of sick"](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1979168) and ["Charlie and Dennis Hide a Body"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20913680/chapters/49718447) were both phenomenal reads and I would highly recommend checking them out. Big thanks to [Tia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cityinagarden/pseuds/cityinagarden) for the beta and tolerating my awful ideas, per usual.
> 
> **Content warnings:** graphic depictions of violence, gore, minor character death, vomit mention, substance abuse
> 
> Title from "Townie" by Mitski. Set somewhere around S11-S12.

Dennis Reynolds knows how to carry out the perfect crime. One without fatal human errors.

In theory.

He has known for the longest time since critiquing movies with Mac became a thing they religiously did on Tuesdays. The hopelessly badass Mac provides self-assured commentaries on fight scenes, thinking he could kick ass with ten times the force. Action is nothing more than showing off. Dennis, on the other hand, simply nitpicks thriller crime scenes _knowing_ he could orchestrate a murder better. He has accumulated countless tools that are orderly hanging on his belt, and he has that bloated charisma of his under it. He likes to think he’s detail-oriented. Vigilant, even.  
A well-read man such as himself tends to draw from what he knows best; fiction tethered to reality. Real people make mistakes all the time—authors erase those mistakes to create the spotless crime. The conflict is always a forced flaw. The cunning killer wouldn't dare leave damning evidence behind, yet there are greasy fingerprints near the body and hair on the carpet. This is the most pathetic attempt at making the reader feel sympathetic towards them.

You have to challenge yourself to overcome the perfection of such fiction. The climax should be the kill, not the catch.

Getting a clear, plastex raincoat to enfold his beloved plaid shirt in and pulling a Bateman would be the smartest option, no doubt. Dennis could even enlist his sister to hook him up with an axe from the hardware store where that doormat Gary used to work.  
Now, Gary was a truly contemptible fellow in his eyes. His greatest weakness lied in his overt familiarity. Rutting after uninterested women and lending them his house keys on a whim was an amateur move. Laughable. Maybe if he wasn’t such a patsy for carbon copy boxed-blonde women he could have perfected his craft.

Dennis digresses.

Bateman’s big flaw was reveling in the act itself. It's why he was caught. It’s something that Dennis finds resentful at its core. No elation should be found in all-too-sudden closures such as murder.  
This is a convoluted way to word it all, but what Dennis is really attempting to do, is to cram the word itself way down so he doesn’t have to keep thinking about it. Murder. The urge to kill. But it just keeps coming up, is the thing.

He really only broached the topic as part of his many internal monologues because Uncle Jack is scheduled to stay in town for the upcoming week on a business trip. Dennis hates his guts. _Those damn alimony payments_. Not to mention his eccentric behavior around Charlie.  
Charlie doesn’t talk about his discomfort but it's fairly obvious to someone who has known him for years. He’s skittish, more than otherwise. He gets high twice on a daily basis in preparation for the inevitable. Dennis is with him on most days.

Today the two are decidedly getting piss drunk at Sudz. Not like this paltry bar is superior to Paddy’s in any way, but the change in atmosphere is as good of an escape as any. The place is teeming with eyesore vibrancy and that one Culture Club hit single plays from the speakers over the chattering crowd.

“You can’t keep relapsing this hard, dude. It’s not normal. It’s uh,” —Dennis starts snapping his fingers, the word sitting on the tip of his tongue— “what’s the word… detrimental! It’s detrimental to your health, Charlie.”

Charlie takes a sip of his cocktail through the lime green silly straw tucked in his tall glass. He has already chewed the decorative umbrella to bits. “You’re an alcoholic,” he points out. “I’m not taking your word for anything.”

“Look, this is-this isn’t—” Dennis stammers, “it’s not about me, okay? And—by the way, we’re _both_ drinking in daylight, so I'm completely missing the point you're trying to make here.”

Charlie winces. “This rum and coke is more coke than rum." He scrunches his nose up. "What were we even talking about?”

“Getting shitfaced whenever your uncle wants to hang out with you is _not_ a solution.”

"Isn't that what you did when you had to drag your ass over to Maureen's every month?"

"Alcohol in moderation alleviates stress. Plus, withdrawal symptoms are worse than being drunk."

Charlie huffs out an airy laugh. "No wonder she left you."

"I get it, okay! I get it! Now shut up."

There is no bite to his voice. There never is when he raises his voice at Charlie because he doesn’t mean to.

“It is a solution to me,” Charlie mutters into his straw. “Getting drunk, I mean. I'm doing fine. I adjust. I don’t know what’s in it for you, though.”

“What’s in it for me? Really?”

“Yeah, really. What the fuck is in it for you?”

Dennis sneers. “I’m your _friend_ , that’s what.”

Charlie swings his glass in the air with an easy movement. “To friendship!”

“I’m not having a toast over what, a rum and coke and,” —Dennis taps his own glass— “a screwdriver? That’s such a white trash thing.” He puts in an effort to sound sobered up as he flags the bartender down. “Two glasses of red wine. File it under ‘Frank Reynolds’.”

Charlie giggles. “Frank’s gonna get pissed, dude.”

“That’s a problem for future Dennis to handle,” he dismisses in a contented tone. He pulls a cigarette from the Pall Mall Azure box reposed between them on the countertop.

Charlie recognizes the shapes and colors on the packaging. “Also... red wine with Pall Mall? What is this,” he chuckles, “some sorta like—are you doing a subversion thing?”

“What subversion thing? Red’s just more my style. Don’t really care for brands, if I’m being honest.”

“Huh.”

The conversation fades and a companionable silence takes a seat beside them. Dennis lights his cigarette and lets it dangle from his lips. If Charlie wasn't five drinks in, he might have told him how big of a hypocrite he is.

Dennis flashes a half-smile at him as their drinks arrive. Charlie’s wine splashes on the counter as their glasses clink together.

“Cheers. To friendship or whatever.”

Charlie keeps staring at his hands as he cradles his glass. “God, I wish that dickhead would just drop dead already.”

Dennis takes a sip. “You mean Frank?”

“No, no…”

“...Uncle Jack?”

“Yeah.”

The silence becomes more tense with the coming pause. Dennis wonders what about the mention of Jack stirs this unsettling vexation in him. Like hands crawling up his back, beneath his skin, their nails scraping on his spine. Dennis just wants to help Charlie. Dennis—

Dennis could do _it_.

* * *

The clock strikes midnight sharp when Dennis rolls up to the Kelly residence. He knows this because he keeps checking the exact time on the Cartier watch strapped around his wrist. The Range Rover stares at his back from across the street. He has to hold one hand with the other to stop the shaking as he unlocks the front door with the spare key he had found underneath the mat. The upside-down _welcome_ on the mat laughs in his face as he gingerly shuts the door.

He carries his tools up the staircase to the second floor; a packed duffle bag in one hand and Charlie's rat bashing baseball bat slung over his shoulder. Every step is calculated. He knows the layout like the back of his hand. There is nothing exceptional about the way he pushes down on the handle to the room on the right, hand clad in a purple nitrile glove. Again, there is nothing exceptional about him locking the door with a subtle _click_ upon stepping over the sill.

He can hear uncle Jack snore lightly as he edges closer to the bed. One fleeting glance around the semidark room tells him that nothing had changed about the furnishing in twenty-something years. The tilted photographs hung on the walls and the tasteless wallpaper behind them… all so dismal.

The bag is tossed on the bed post-haste.

Dennis’s face is but an expressionless mask of himself as he cradles his grip on the stick tighter and raises it in the air. He takes a deep breath. His elbows lock in prime position and his eyes glint with revenge.

This is his greatest hit and he’s making it count. Here, in his best friend’s childhood home, Dennis swings the bat like it’s his life’s homerun.

Blood splatters on the pillow like a malformed Rorschach test. Dennis bares his teeth in disbelief, an unbridled hysteria pulling his skin back. He hits and hits and _hits_ the motherfucker until he bleeds red and his face is pulverized by the nails into an unrecognizable pulp. His skull is bashed in like an eggshell.

It’s a manic kind of mundane. Just another Friday in Philadelphia.

Dennis should be cackling from schadenfreude. There should be an audience screeching in rapture at the top of their lungs at his success.

Dennis Reynolds did _it_.

It’s... over.

Except—

Except a reality check slams him headfirst into the ground. He wants to bellow through his teeth, clenched tight and gnashing like a hound before the big leap. He is terrified, not of the lifeless body at his feet, but of the monstrosity anger makes of him. The blood-stained hands attached to his pale wrists are ones he does not recognize upon looking down and he almost drops the bat. It’s good that he doesn’t—that would wake Bonnie up.

He hears the noise drumming in his ears without the bat falling.

_One hit would have been enough_.

Dennis cannot fathom how the control had seeped from his open palms so easy.

_Holy fuck_.

_Jack Kelly is dead and you killed him_. What a peculiar inner monologue. _Huh_. Dennis nearly trips over his own feet parroting it. _Murderer_. He gags on the bile scratching at the back of his throat. _Bag, bag—where's the bag?_ He scrambles to rip the zipper open. It’s stuck— _Murphy's Law_. He shoves his hand in the opening and retrieves the burner he had bought specifically for the occasion. The rubber of the glove, tacky from that carmine varnish spread, adheres to the buttons as he dials _Charlie_ ’s number. Not his treacherous sister’s or tattletale roommate’s, both of whom would betray him without a second thought upon a promise of self-profit—but Charlie’s; Charlie, who’s oh-so-good at wiping away a knee-high mess, Charlie—

Charlie who Dennis _trusts_ with that queer feeling in his gut.

The phone rings for an entire minute before the other end picks up.

“Charlie?”

“Yeah...?”

Dennis clears his throat. "I-It’s me. Dennis.”

“Dennis?” Charlie asks in a drowsy voice. “Are you… okay? You don’t sound okay."

"Come to your mom's house and don't—just don't ask questions.” His fake bravado quavers from a rising anxiety. “I can't explain it right now—b-but I will. I promise."

The phone's speaker buzzes with white noise.

"I'll be there in fifteen." He pauses. "Dennis? If you fucked my mom, I’ll kill you."

Charlie hangs up before he could answer.

_Hah. Interesting choice of words._

Dennis spends those grim fifteen minutes laying down white plastic sheeting on the floor and lining his tools straight on the trim. They end up as straight as his morals moments before so he leaves them be in frustration.

He averts his eyes from Jack's head as he tucks his hands under his body. He manages to reassure himself that he’s only disregarding what’s left of his face because it’s uglier than ever before.

He bends his knees and lifts from his hips. He chokes on that putrid cadaverine smell that wafts in his face. It brings back memories of Bobby and his van of madmen from the shore. Dennis shivers from the feel of dirt still stuck under his nails.

He… he’s different. He’s not like them.

He’s _not_ like them, and yet Jack has been brought to the state of that nameless surgeon by his hands. He resembles a freezer-burnt lump of rotting meat in his arms as he is lowered on the sheet.

The door behind him creaks open too slow and too loud. Dennis is instantly paralyzed by the sound.

If he had ever entertained the abstraction of God or merely a power higher than himself, he might have prayed to it in his last moments. Maybe being on his knees will count for something. The house feels like it's caving in and he's in jet black nothingness. A muffled ringing is replaying in his ears, the word “GUILTY” written on his forehead in that same carmine that's covering his hands.

"Dennis?"

Dennis turns to face the voice at the door. He’s reduced to a straying gaze without a face in the dark, the look in his sad, sad eyes brittle as he's crouched over Jack's body with a spotless butcher's knife in hand.

“Charlie. I can explain."

Charlie’s mouth twitches into a twisted smile. “Holy shit, you _killed_ him.”

"Charlie I need your help, you _have_ to listen to me—" His voice cracks as he gets too loud for his own head.

Charlie holds one finger up as if conducting the conversation. "Shh… mom's asleep.” He walks over to Dennis’s side and kneels beside the body. "So… dead uncle, huh?"

"Wait, you're not... mad at me?"

Charlie touches two fingers to Jack's face—which is more sopping fat and grooves like ground beef than mien—his fingerprints stamping into the viscous blood. "I'm pissed off that you're making me clean all this up." Charlie knows this isn't what Dennis wanted to hear. "I mean, I'm guessing that's why you called me and not Mac."

He half turns to Dennis.

"I called you because I trust you not to tell anyone."

Something shifts in Charlie's eyes as he returns his attention to the body. He pushes the sleeve of Jack's stained pajama shirt up his arm until it bunches under his armpit. He studies the exposed body part with more concentration than Dennis has ever seen on him.

"Did you bring... an electric saw by any chance?"

"An _electric_ _saw_? Really?" Dennis questions. "And where in the fuck would I have put an electric saw?"

"I don't know! I don't know." Charlie whines. "Whatever. Give me the knife, then."

Dennis defensively pulls back. Just a few millimeters at a time.

"...Why should the knife be in your hands?"

"Do _you_ wanna do the dirty work?"

Dennis holds both of his bloody hands up. The look on his face is unamused yet… he looks pretty like that, all bloodied up. It testifies against his control-freak nature.

He observes with morbid curiosity as Charlie draws an invisible line over Jack's wrist. "Put the knife here." Charlie pulls his other hand away. "Get your fingers out of the way—don't wanna chop them off." He digs his serrated nail into Jack's skin. "Slice."

Step one: Dennis balances the blade on the curve of Jack's radius. His breathing is steady, his mind is clear. He knows where he is and what he is doing.

Step two: his other hand is pulled back to safety. He places both hands on the handle.

Step three: his hands are shaking with such vehemence that the knife drops to the carpet with a dull _clatter_. Dennis thinks he might pass out.

"Charlie I can't fucking do it. I-I'm gonna throw up!”

Charlie reaches over and takes his hand into his. Oddly warm through the rubber glove and thick skin. There is also something deeply comforting about having him restrain the trembling with touch. Dennis swallows his nerves and looks back at him. Charlie squeezes his hand once more then lets go of it.

“I’ll do it.”

“Give me something to do. I can’t just sit here and-and—”

“I don’t want to risk you throwing up.”

Dennis robotically nods. “Yeah,” he says with a strain in his voice. “Of course.” He unfolds a large garbage bag that they will dump the severed body parts into.

One by one.

* * *

Dennis and Charlie toss the hefty body on the backseat of the Range Rover. There's silence. Eye contact.

Dennis slams the door shut and holds his fist out towards Charlie.

Charlie bumps it. "We can't use your car."

Dennis lets out a weary exhale. "Yeah."

Charlie leans against the car. "What now?"

Dennis shoves his hands in the pockets of his plastic coat.

"We'll hitchhike. That could work."

"And... where to?"

"Come to North Dakota with me," Dennis blurts out.

"...What?"

Dennis grips Charlie by the wrist. When did he take them out of his pockets? "North Dakota. It's a good place. Far from here." His cold hand holds him tight. His fingers are tighter than he wants them to be. "No one would recognize us. I-I—Look, I need you to come with me.”

Charlie stares at him with blankness and a mild curiosity. "I don't know, Dennis…"

"Just for a few weeks! Until things get swept under the rug. I'll protect you and you'll-you'll protect me." He forces himself to loosen his grip. "We are each other's alibis."

Charlie nods. He doesn't quite know what tomorrow will hold but Dennis will be there. He mirrors Dennis's grip on his wrist, hands twisting around each other's forearms. Completely intertwined like branches of two neighboring, withering trees.

Dennis continues. "You know you agreed when you picked up the phone. I _know_ you know, dude."

"I know."

Dennis nods, too. His lips can't help but curve into a mournful grin.

**Author's Note:**

>  **\+ author's notes**  
>  Thank you for reading! :) This was a passion project of mine and it WILL have a road-trip-esque continuation with more focus on the relationship aspect. This is a set-up, mostly. And murder. Tell me in the comments if this made you feel anything? I love reading horror stories and I tried to capture the atmosphere somewhat.
> 
> **\+ socials**  
>  I changed URLs! Tumblr can now be found at [charden](https://charden.tumblr.com/) dot tumblr dot com


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